Assignment Six SmartPhone-Stephen Swigut

The main problem I have is that I get calls/texts from individuals when I am in class or at the library or get calls from the wrong "type" of people at the wrong times. Another problem is forgetting to change the ringer volume/vibrate to what period in the day I wanted it to be. Lastly I have the problem of knowing whether calls are important or not.

My smart phone would have many features to try and solve these problems. It would have a built in schedule calendar to know when I had class, work, or was socially free. This way I would not get calls or texts until the class or work was over. This would also work for the ringer volume and vibrate option. When I was in class the phone would be on silent or vibrate knowing what state I was in and by the people who were calling me. I would do this by having people categorized as friends/colleagues/parents etc. This way friend’s texts/calls would be received during social times, work related individuals calls would come only during specified calendar work times, and parent calls could come through during social or work times as well. I would also have a program override in the phone for any individual in the case of an “emergency” in order to reach me.

There are some social technical gaps here. First, Ackerman states Systems do not allow sufficient nuance. People make very fine grained distinctions, often based on contextual or historical knowledge. Systems do not do this. For example some select friends I would like to be able to reach me at “all” times. And some people I would like to have away messages. This could be solved by inputing special override features and status messages for these individuals. Similarly Ackerman says “Systems are not socially flexible. People switch among states gracefully. For example, people fluidly move among their faces as social settings require. People do not make these switches explicitly, whereas systems require people to explicitly switch states (e.g., roles .” Sometimes I would change roles within my schedule because I need flexibility. My phone would have to sense this change and reprogram my schedule accordingly to whatever state I had entered. Lastly, “Systems do not allow sufficient ambiguity. In most settings, people are inherently ambiguous about, for example, which role they are currently playing or the import of the information they are disclosing.” I may not want to let people know my role or status at times and my phone would have to inherently understand this whenever needed. This is all obviously needs very advanced technology and could take decades to build.